Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Princely Princeton

Today was a long training day. When I first thought it up, I thought it was slightly excessive, but then we decided to do it anyway. We biked 15 km from our place in Buena Vista (8000 ft) over to the Mt Princeton trailhead (9000 ft). John caught a shot of me that I didn't know about at the time on the approach road toward the trailhead, with Mt Princeton (14,197 ft) in a cloud in the background:

Then we biked some more - up the mining road that winds along the hillside. We stopped for a snack, and lately I've had a knack (I wish I didn't!) for picking places with downed trees next to the road.

I think John has been inspired by the movie "Man On Wire":

Further up the road, we stashed the bikes near the radio towers at 10,800 ft. The climbing on bikes actually felt pretty good, but the road was getting steeper and it was a lot easier to continue on foot.

This marmot was caught jumping down from underneath a parked vehicle - I hear that they chew on wires and can cause damage. Bad marmot!

John looking ahead...

...to a view something like this (except without him in it yet):

Another stealth photo of me, on the rocky ridge. There were a lot of rocks up there. Good practice for walking on talus slopes:

At the top - John doing summit register duty (out of the wind):

Looking back the way we had climbed up:

The obligatory "Colorado is beautiful!" shot:

John trying to run in the wind:

I like this version of a selfie:

A couple other climbers pointed out this plaque as we were coming down - glad they did:

John on the descent:

This marmot either just wanted to say hi or perhaps he thought he might get fed (he looks like he may have been hand-fed before):

Or maybe he was a trail-runner-marmot - he didn't want to leave the trail, scampering ahead of John for a while:

Me on the descent:

Back on bikes! The mining road was good practice for me, as I'm pretty awful at descending dirt roads in the mountains. I still need a lot of practice. John had plenty of time to set up for this shot:

Back on pavement, back to Buena Vista, with a stop in our favorite local restaurant called Bongo Billy's!